Red-Headed Woman (1932) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Red-Headed Woman
Year: 1932
Director: Jack Conway
Country: US
Language: English

Red-Headed Woman was a bestseller, but so trashy that MGM couldn’t find a name actress willing to play the leading role. Clara Bow and Colleen Moore said no. Paramount refused MGM’s request of Nancy Carroll. The actress who eventually fought for and won the role, Jean Harlow, was known by fans for being a seductress and known by critics as being a bad actress. While established stars kept their distance from this picture, Harlow rode it to great reward. Establishing herself as a high calibre star in the process. 

Lil (Jean Harlow) works for the Legendre Company and causes Bill to divorce Irene and marry her. She has an affair with businessman Gaerste and uses him to force society to pay attention to her.

Red-Headed Woman presented “a very grave problem” to Motion Picture Producers and Directors of America (MPPDA) President Will Hays, who saw its lead character, Lil Andrews, as no more than “a common little tart". The role would have likely ruined the reputation of bigger stars, but Harlow was in an odd point of her career and, fortunately, managed to infuse a very human quality into the character. 

 MGM contract director Jack Conway was assigned to the film. It was a solid choice. Conway had twenty years directorial experience at this time and was coming into his own with the talkies. The picture's script likely had a lot of red ink from the censors, but when it arrived in theatres it still managed to shock critics, who really couldn't believe that much sex could come from a 30's picture. 

Red-Headed Woman was a hit in its day, grossing well over the amount it cost to produce the film. It also pushed Jean Harlow's career to new heights. While its pretty tame for today's standards, Red-Headed Woman is still a pretty entertaining watch.

Oldboy (2003) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Oldboy
Year: 2003
Director: Park Chan-wook
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean

Second in his thematic “Vengeance Trilogy” after Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and before Lady Vengeance (2005), South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy (2003) is quite a visceral picture that is simultaneously engaging and repulsive. Based on the Japanese manga Old Boy, by writer Garon Tsuchiya and illustrator Nobuaki Minegishi, Park’s script uses the source merely as a springboard into a more complex and violent world.

After being kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, Oh Dae-Su (Min-Sik Choi) is released, only to find that he must find his captor in five days.

 Oldboy uses such gut imagery to create symbols, assigning ultra-violence, sexual perversity, and sadomasochistic torture metaphoric reasoning that ripens the twisting narrative into a stark emotional confrontation. Shrouded by cryptic allusions and uncertain causalities, Park’s cinematic atmosphere contains a dreamlike quality best described as Kafkaesque. Indeed the film-maker would cite Kafka as a source of inspiration, although I'd say he's less into allegories and engages his audience on a raw emotional level. 

On the surface, Park’s variety of violent savagery push the boundaries of censorship, but when studied one will see the genius of his editing. Park avoids glorifying the content and implies violence by cleverly cutting around the acts. Constructing a thriller that avoids a predictable outcome is quite remarkable. Park uses color saturations, intentional grain, bright colors, and wild formal manipulation to match the primal nature of the story. 

Oldboy broods on the self-deprecating vanity of revenge, and presents the most terrible case of the three against the futility of vengeance. It's unfortunately often dismissed as exploitation, and although I'll agree that at times its hard to watch, it's a pretty smart well-made film that pushes buttons when it comes to social commentary. 

A Boy and His Dog (1975) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: A Boy and His Dog
Year: 1975
Director: L.Q Jones
Country: US
Language: English

Based on a short story by novelist Harlan Ellison, A Boy and His Dog is a quintessential sci-fi/black comedy/cult/ classic that has inspired many films and video games after it. If you've seen Mad Max (1979) or have played the Fallout franchise then you know what type of film you're getting into. Set in a futuristic post-apocalyptic countryside, this is a weird picture that should certainly peak your interest just by watching the odd-ball trailer. 

A boy named Vic (Don Johnson) communicates telepathically with his dog named Blood as they scavenge for food and sex, and they stumble into an underground society.

A Boy and his Dog is bluntly divided into two main chapters; one above ground (where the main characters try to find a mate) and one underground (where the main characters have too many mates). The odyssey through post-apocalyptic landscapes isn't entirely original, even for 1975 (remember Omega Man?) but what makes this picture throughly entertaining is the wisecrack and darkly humorist interactions between Vic and Blood, which give a whole new ambience to the concept.

A Boy and His Dog is a very 1970s American movie; it's essentially an outlaw western that voices explicit, symbolic disappointment and despair with the country's government in the wake of the Vietnam War. It isn't as self-pitying as say, Easy Rider, because it is so lively and full of energy. It's such a weird film that it can easily be an escapist fantasy as well. 

 The film celebrates the apocalypse as an opportunity for the oppressed of society to do whatever the hell they please. Though not all of this is particularly good (the robbing and murdering), it does make for a particularly enticing type of cinema. Well written, directed, acted and shot A Boy and His Dog is an awe-inspiring piece of sci-fi.

Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Year: 1985
Director: George Miller
Country: Australia
Language: US

While Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was Australian director George Miller's third entry in the Mad Max series, it would be his first Hollywood production. After his successes with Mad Max (1979) and The Road Warrior (1981) Warner Bros. were fairly confident that they could make money with Miller, so they financed and distributed the picture. Co-directing alongside George Ogilvie, Miller manages to make a rather divisive movie among fans of the series.

After being exiled from the most advanced town in post apocalyptic Australia, a drifter (Mel Gibson) travels with a group of abandoned children to rebel against the town's queen (Tina Turner) 

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome arrived in the summer of 1985, just a week after the box-office giant Back to the Future. It earned many times its hefty $12 million dollar budget, but was overshadowed by almost every other film to come out at that time. Some would champion Miller's vision, but others saw it as a letdown from the other films in the series. I personally was absolutely enthralled by this entry. "Two man enter. One man leave."

In Beyond Thunderdome Gibson's character is further cemented alongside cinematic anti-heroes such as Clint Eastwood's "The Man with No Name". He's just a man trying to survive in a cruel and unforgiving environment, well captured by the film's cinematographer. Stealing the entire film is the cage match fight sequence between Max and Blaster, wherein the two men are bungeed inside a metal dome pen, on the outside of which spectators cling and cheer. Tina Turner gives a memorable performance, her screen presence is unrivaled. 

Granted, despite its many qualities Beyond Thunderdome feels a bit disjointed. It has many ideas and gives Gibson a bit too much to do. Sometimes we're watching an epic to-the-death cage fight and other times we're watching a Hook knockoff. I find myself entertained and sometimes left in awe by this picture, but I wish they worked with a tighter script.  

The Running Man (1987) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: The Running Man
Year: 1987
Director: Paul Glaser
Country: US
Language: English

I would not say The Running Man was "one of the first" movies to predict the reality television epidemic that would have taken over TV schedules within 20 years of its release, but I'll certainly say that it's one of the most violent. It makes The Hunger Games series look like I Love Lucy. Made during a time when Arnold Schwarzenegger's influence over pop culture was close to tipping the scales, its rather interesting that the most daring decision in this movie was his choice to wear bright yellow spandex. 

In this film, a wrongly convicted man must try to survive a public execution gauntlet staged as a game show. 

I find it strange that The Running Man is one of Schwarzenegger's least talked about pictures of the 80's. It's every bit as good as The Terminator, but no silver screen big whip seems to be running at the chance to make a sequel or reboot. It's an ode to 80's action cinema, with a dash of science fiction for good measure. A gloriously bloody picture, Running Man manages to balance humor and pure muscle. 

Schwarzenneger plays a convincing hero, an innocent man who's only crime is PUMPING TOO MUCH IRON. He is upstaged by the antagonists of the movie, gladiators like Subzero who wield a hockey stick/sword combination. Buzzsaw, the character who obviously carries a chainsaw, is by far the most deadly foe. 

Given a modest budget for 1987, the special effects unfortunately look quite dated compared to what we see in more recent cinema. Even though it's futuristic setting seems off, one can't deny that Running Man has a great script and is still incredibly entertaining. This is my favourite Schwarzenegger movie. 

Demolition Man (1993) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Demolition Man
Year: 1993
Director: Marco Brambilla
Country: US
Language: English

Sylvester Stallone can be pretty much cemented as an American action movie Icon in 2017,  but his path to fame and fortune was not always clear-cut. Outside of the crowd and critic pleasing Rocky and Rambo franchises, many of Stallone's roles did not translate to financial success for the studios. His 1987 drama Over the Top floundered and the 1992 comedy Stop or My Mom Will Shoot was too off-putting to put butts in the seats. 1993's Demolition Man was a bit of a risk, a sci-fi action comedy, Stallone may have wandered into more than he bargained for. 

In Demolition Man, a police officer (Stallone) is brought out of suspended animation in prison to pursue an old ultra-violent nemesis (Wesley Snipes) who is loose in a non-violent future society. 

When Demolition Man hit theaters its reviews were relatively mixed, and it didn’t make quite as much money as the studio had hoped. Yet, despite this, the film is one of the smarter pictures in Stallone's filmography (albeit the filmography does hit some brainless points). It's set in a unique vision of the future, where crime is devoid and swearing results in being finned. It's like Ned Flanders himself was in control of the city. 

Wesley Snipes is well cast as the right actor to play an ultra-violent lunatic. He brings the right mix of humour, physical presence and psychopathy to the role. Stallone is also well cast as the fish-out-of-water underdog. The writing is remarkable, giving the movie a satirical edge that few other action movies could successfully tread. It’s unusual to see an action hero so painfully out of his element, and placed in a situation where he’s treated with scorn rather than adulation.

Demolition Man's setting, characters and plot are so fascinating that it can be forgiven for the less than stellar action sequences, which to seem to lack energy and are poorly edited. It's quite a witty, weird and memorable picture. I find myself wanting to view this more than any of Stallone's other features.

Hacksaw Ridge (2016) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Hacksaw Ridge
Year: 2016
Director: Mel Gibson
Country: US
Language: English

In the early 2000's Mel Gibson was well on his way to becoming a Hollywood Legend. He had already won two Oscars for his Scottish epic Braveheart and had acted in some of the highest grossing films in the history of American cinema. Passion of the Christ had many on the fence, but surely...oh no. Gibson's alcoholism got the best of him and he was caught saying many anti-semetic and racist rants on camera. Blacklisted from tinsel-town for a solid decade, Gibson would find his comeback with the mesmerizing Hacksaw Ridge. 

WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people, and becomes the first man in American history to receive the Medal of Honor without firing a shot.

Lately the right-wing minority of Hollywood seems to love making movies about heroic patriots. Clint Eastwood's latest ventures produced American Sniper (2014) and Sully (2016). These biographies often tell a complicated tale in very simple terms, eliminating any area of grey. I'd say Gibson's work is far superior, despite writing Desmond Doss as a goody two shoes hero. He does a tremendous job at actually demonstrating a crisis of faith and depicting how much one must suffer in order to stay true to their deeply held convictions.

Gibson contrasts his main character's pacifism with the horrors and brutality of modern war. The second half of the film is jarring, with the screen being filled with blood, entrails, and maggot ridden corpses. In one shot we see a soldier run at his enemy, using the corpse of his friend as a shield against the bullets. This amount of gore would put the Saw series to shame.  Though no film can depict war without unintentionally glorifying it, Gibson , alongside cinematographer Simon Duggan and editor John Gilbert,do a damn fine job at making me want to stay the hell away from a battlefield. 

Evangelical film-makers ought to study Gibsons' work so they can produce a quality product instead of the heavily sanitized jokes that are God's not Dead, War Room and so many other supposed "crisis of faith" films. Overall Hacksaw Ridge will be a very divisive picture among the public, but I must admit that I found myself very deeply engaged with the material presented. 

Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Year: 1906
Director: Edwin S. Porter
Country: US
Language: N/A

When cinema was short and silent much of their inspiration, surprisingly, came from comic strips. The popularity of trick and effects heavy pictures meant that if your comic was oddball and ripe with imagination that it would likely be produced into cinema. Winsor McCay, a pioneering cartoonist and animator, launched his strip in 1904. Edwin S. Porter, of Great Train Robbery fame, would use this material to create a hit.

A trippy movie, Dream of a Rarebit Fiend it's about a man who has a bad dream after consuming a large meal.

Director Edwin S. Porter was not comfortable with the star system that began to emerge with the dawn of the 1910s. He preferred the more technical aspect of film-making and thus made pictures that would require a lot of hands-on special effects work. Double exposures, miniatures and other camera trickery show that the man knew his craft and was able to be simultaneously creative and innovative. Few cinema-goers would have seen a picture like this.

Porter does a great job at imitating the look, tone and atmosphere of the original comic strips. Using a distinct style totally unlike the trick films of France and Britain, I found the camera perfectly emulated a sense of whimsy and wonder.  Dream of a Rarebit Fiend for the Edison studios, although there is no evidence to suggest it was the studios' biggest hit of that year. 

I liked this picture, and I'll certainly agree that it's one of the best pictures of early silent cinema. A fun film, I particularly enjoyed the part where the bed flies over the city, dragging our main character behind.

Erotikon (1920) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Erotikon
Year: 1920
Director: Mauritz Stiller
Country: Sweden
Language: N/A

Erotikon influenced Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris (1923), Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game 1939), and much of the later work of Ernst Lubitsch. An elegant cheeky comedy, its influence can still be felt in romantic comedies of 2016. Swedish director Mauritz Stiller's bemused look at the social institutions of marriage and monogamy humans have created hilariously suggests that the species may have a made a colossally dimwitted mistake.

Erotikon revolves around the romantic entanglements of six stock characters from drawing room comedy: Professor Leo Charpentier (the clueless husband), Irene (the restless wife), their niece Marte (the flirtatious ingenue), sculptor Preben (the Bohemian artist), aviator Baron Felix (the pretentious flyboy), and Sidonius (the absentminded professor)

 Some Swedish Studio history; a 1919 merger that resulted in Svensk Filmindustri meant that the company now distributed and exhibited films as well as produced them. The critical and financial success of Victor Sjöström’s Terje Vigen (1917) led to Studio head Charles Magnusson deciding to make fewer films, each with stronger production values and bigger budgets. He also wanted to appeal to more international markets. Erotikon, which sounds like a weird robot sex operation, was the result of that decision. It was the most expensive swedish film at that time. 

The film has quite lavish sequences, some involving over 800 extras onscreen at a time. Erotikon is quite ahead of its time in the amount of eroticism each frame exudes. Everything, from the situations the characters find themselves in to the dress is quite risque. Soaked in decadence, the picture does not come off as sleazy, it is rather tasteful when addressing the wicked.

Unfortunately a fire destroyed most of Stiller's previous work, so we may never know how this incredible director found his passion. Erotikon is, in no doubt, a memorable piece of film history that ought to be beloved by fans of silent film. 

Ben Hur (1907) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Ben Hur
Year: 1907
Director: Harry T. Morey
Country: US
Language: N/A

Based on an 1880 novel by Lew Wallace, which was inspired by events in the bible, Ben Hur was first put to screen in 1907, then remade in 1925 (a masterful silent epic), 1959 (an award winning talkie epic) and 2016 (a forgettable piece of crap). This Ben Hur was an unauthorized silent short version that resulted in the producers being successfully sued for copyright infringement. 

In some short scenes, we see Jesus Christ as a Jew who is prepared to wage war on Rome after his family is betrayed. It ends in a chariot race.

By this time in film history, Cinema was just starting to be seen as serious business. Previously it had been viewed as a short-term novelty, a sideshow attraction if you will. Ben Hur's production was loosely defined however, unlike the epics that would come in the late 1910's this didn't have much of a narrative nor did it have great cinematography as the camera was fixed to one position throughout its run-time. 

With a $500 budget, which was a decent sum for its time, it's unfortunate that the producers didn't get much out of this film. Hopefully the Director went on to make decent profit, because the court ordered him to pay the original authors $25,000! We could make a claim that the story is poor because of the time, but George Melies was making marvelous works of art at the time. 

This version of Ben Hur is largely forgotten by silent fanatics and I can see why. This doesn't hold a candle to the 1925 horse-killing juggernaut by Demille.